Sunday, March 4, 2012

So far during this young season, the Horned Frog pitching staff has carried most of the weight while the batting order continues to round into shape. Even in many of their losses, the Frogs have been given chances to win by their pitchers. This was again the case yesterday, when the offense's bad day was successfully countered by sophomore starter Stefan Crichton's eight superb scoreless innings, in which he gave up just four hits and did not walk a batter. Kaleb Merck and submariner Justin Scharf combined to retire the Cowboys' threat in the top of the 9th, preserving the victory for the Frogs- evening the series at 1-1 and pulling the club closer to getting back to the .500 mark. Today's series finale starts at 1:00pm, and if you can't make it out to Lupton on this glorious day (like I can't), you can watch it by clicking here.

What a tremendous show put on by the Horned Frog seniors in their final regular-season home game at Daniel-Meyer Coliseum. Down 18 at one point, TCU stormed back to take the lead in the final minutes of regulation before heading to overtime- led by all around heroic efforts by Hank Thorns and J.R. Cadot and some crucial long-range shooting and rebounding by Craig Williams. You have to be proud of this team for fighting so hard and never giving up against a Top 25 foe- but really, I think it says a lot about the job Jim Christian and his staff have done with this team that they can no longer celebrate moral victories. They expect to win games now, regardless of the opponent- and will take that mentality with them to the MWC Tournament in Vegas this week. They will start their mission of winning the conference tournament title with a rubber match against Colorado State, to be played at 4:30pm on Thursday. The Lady Frogs, by the way, will begin their tournament at the same time on Wednesday afternoon against Wyoming.

Big, big thanks to Stefan Stevenson and Mac Engel of the Star-Telegram for getting out to spring practice and reporting on it the way our local paper should've been doing it for years. In the super-secretive world that Gary Patterson envisions TCU football being, any info on the spring-time development of the program is most welcome by the public. There's obviously the bad news of redshirt freshman offensive lineman Carter Wall going down with a knee injury that will keep him out until September (and realistically, his recovery may keep him from contributing at all in 2012), along with a few other minor injuries like starting linebacker Kenny Cain's sprained ankle. In Cain's temporary absence, though, it looks as if a pair of (soon to be former) walk-on linebackers from Aledo have stepped up. Danny Heiss has taken Cain's reps with the first team, while fellow Bearcat-turned-Frog Joel Hasley is working with the second unit behind Deryck Gildon. On offense, LaDarius Brown has apparently been very impressive. The 6'4" 22olb redshirt freshman receiver may be the best physical specimen the Frogs have had at that position under Patterson, and offers a different kind of target to compliment the go-to guy (Josh Boyce) and the smaller, speedy deep threats (Skye Dawson and Brandon Carter). It's always nice to hear about another potential weapon for your quarterback with an NFL arm, especially when you've got a stable of super-productive running backs as the Frogs do.

Even if you don't follow many of TCU's other sports programs (I'll admit I don't really all that much, either), it's always nice to read about them being successful...like the rifle team, which stands a good chance at bringing home another national championship in the next few weeks. And also...Texas is playing TCU before they'll actually have to when we join the Big 12? Color me surprised.